Category: Desserts

Profiteroles For Very Special Occasions

You might think that five and a bit years into this that I would cease to be surprised.  Both when things go awry and when by some stroke of mad luck things work out just as they should.  Such was the case with the Profiteroles I made on the weekend from the Very Special Occasions Chapter of The A- Z of Cooking (1977).  When the profiteroles came out of the oven looking like, well, profiteroles, there were whoops of joy, squeals of excitement and a bit of spontaneous kitchen dancing!

Yep, in this house, this:

Equals This:

http://www.laughinggif.com/view/ew0vxmklkk/56.htmlBut let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet.  First.  Hello V.  And whilst we’re on the subject let’s’ all note the name of the chapter.  Not just Special Occasions.  Very Special Occasions.  Requiring very special dancing apparently.  And also requiring several goes at making something that was worthy of posting. After all, it’s a very special occasion.

First up there was a go at Carpetbag Steak.  Now, if you lookup Carpetbag Steak anywhere on the interwebs, you will more than likely read that it is a famous  Australian recipe.  I’ve lived here virtually all my life and I have never head of it.  However, I really liked the idea of steak and oysters.  I made the recipe and it looked and tasted meh.

Then I made a Beef Stroganoff.  Tasted good.  Looked terrible in all the photos.  I think it’s that thing that Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers told me about where brown food just doesn’t photo well.  This was about the best…

So then I made Carpetbag Steak v2.  A modern recipe this time.  Still looked and tasted meh.

I was left with a choice.  Champagne and Orange Juice.  Or Profiteroles.  And believe me . You came so close to having Champagne and Orange juice as your very special occasion meal.  Because this is what happens inside my head whenever pastry is mentioned:

https://giphy.com/gifs/bored-room-clean-clWd5ft31I23KThe profiteroles only happened because the very special occasion was a long weekend due to the Football Grand Final being the next day.  I know right.  Who has a holiday BEFORE the big day?

“It’s the dumbest reason for a holiday ever” I said.

“Come to work then” said my boss.

“It’s the best holiday ever.  Better even than Jesus being born.  Or dying.”

So anyway, on the holiday for best/ worst reason ever I got a little bored in the evening and thought that I would have a flick through The A-Z of Cooking, to plan V-Z.  The profiterole recipe caught my eye and  I realised that I had every ingredient.  And a whole heap of bravado due to being about 3/4 of a bottle of a wine in.

Don’t judge.  That produced these.  Light as air, melt in the mouth, boozy cream filled and shiny chocolately pastry balls of deliciousness,

The basis for profiteroles, and the reason for my hissy fit is pastry.  Choux pastry to be exact.  I have made choux pastry exactly once before.  For a recipe called Cherry Fritters from The A-Z of Cooking.  Don’t bother searching the archives for them.  They were a total disaster and I didn’t post them.

But choux starts with a roux…actually no. According to The A-Z of Cooking choux pastry starts with 63g of flour.  Yep.  63.  Not 60.  Not 65.  63.  And seeing as this was a very special occasion, 63g of flour it was.

Profiteroles5This became this:

Which became these.  I couldn’t find a piping bag and my piping skills are non-existent so I just blobbed spoonfuls of the pastry onto the tray.  Also, I wasn’t really expecting this to  work.  And need I remind you about that bottle of wine that was now 5/6’s gone?

Well, slap my arse and call me Charlie if those funny looking blobs didn’t turn into these.  They’re shall we say  “rustic” but on a scale of one to ten of  being recognizable as profiteroles, they have to be at least an eight.

Profiteroles 10So then fill and ice and sprinkle and you get these: (even more profiteroley).

Profiteroles 11

Here’s the recipe direct from The A-Z of Cooking:

Profiteroles 12I tweaked the recipe by swapping out the rum for Amaretto and adding some sprinkles.

Make, eat, enjoy, do a little dance of sheer pleasure.

http://www.laughinggif.com/view/ew0vxmklkk/56.html

And have a great week!

Signature 1 Vintage Valentine Quick as Wink2

 

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REPOST – Future Classics – Australian Table – August 2001

Remember how I said I had a fab idea for a whole new series of blog posts whilst on holiday?  Here’s the thing, along with hundreds of cookbooks, I also have a huge collection of food magazines, most of which sit on shelves in my back room doing nothing.  Once a year, I grab a handful of the oldest, take them on holiday and cut out the recipes I want, throw away the magazines, and cook the recipes over the next 12 months.

Vodka With Crushed Limes2

Crispy Duck with Green Pancakes2jpg

Currently I have a few mags from the late 1990’s but they are most from the early noughties onwards.  So they are not quite but well on their way to becoming formally vintage.  My thought on holiday was….”These are the things that will shortly become the vintage recipes of the future.  So, instead of ripping them up, I’m going to start cooking from them.  Once a month, I’ll revisit one of these magazines, cook a thing or two and decide if these are future vintage classics – or just junk taking up space in my backroom.  Here are the early years to 2013:

Magazines1And here are 2014 to the present day:

Magazines2so, to start, we are stepping back in time 15 years to the August 2001 edition of Australian Table:

Australian Table August 2001 I also thought it might be fun to revisit some of the content of these magazine as well as the recipes, so without further ado, here are the:

Flavours of The Month – August 2001

This section spoke about what was in season.  I thought I might give it a little Retro Food For Modern Times Twist!

Sweet Potatoes

Huh….my plan was to insert a recipe or two from the blog.  However, apparently I have made nothing with sweet potatoes. I’ll link to some recipes  below.

Baby Bok Choy

Or anything with Bok choky.  What have I been cooking in for the last four years?

Cumquats

Hooray – Finally!

Click here for my Four Kumquat Canapés For Four Food Heroes recipes

Pineapples

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer and MC Cocktail

Pineapple soufflé

Movies of The Month

Oh man.  August 2001 was a GOOD month for movies!  I would quite happily watch Bridget Jones’s Diary or Along Came a Spider today.  I don’t recall ever seeing Evolution but I am definitely putting that to rights, pronto.  I know it’s probably a little late with the picky picky however, Australian Table, I would like to point out that the chocolate-voiced, sloe-eyed maverick investigator is actually called Alex Cross.  The ACTOR is Morgan Freeman.  And what a difference a letter makes.  Slow-eyed which I typed at least a dozen times in the above paragraph makes you sound like you should be taking special classes.  Sloe-eyed…hello sexy!

Movies - August 2001

Music Of The Month

Well, I guess you can’t have it all.  I listened to none of these at the time nor do i have any real desire to seek out any of these.  Maybe the Elvis Costello.

Music August 2001

The Food

I chose two recipes from an article on fool proof party food starting with:

Vodka with Crushed Limes

Australian Table August 2001These are my flavours…this was so good!  Tangy, sweet delicious!

Crispy Duck with Green Scallion Pancakes

Crispy Duck with Green PancakesNo, these are my flavours!  Spicy, seductive!

Australian Table August 20012

Berry and Rhubarb Crumble

This recipe came from an advertisement for a 3 in one hand blender.  Crumble is pretty much already a classic but the addition of rhubarb instead of the more traditional apple?  Genius!

Rhubarb and Berry CrumbleRhubarb and Berry Crumble Recipe

Everything I made from this mag was SUPER! My view is that this is a definite future vintage classic!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk down memory lane!  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a mag from September 2001.  I hope it’s as good as this one!

Have a great week!

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REPOST – The Dishiest Dish – Rhubarb, Rose and Passionfruit Sorbet

We are having a lovely spurt of late summer…OMG, it’s autumn now….warm weather, just perfect for enjoying this delicious rhubarb, rose and passionfruit sorbet.

Rhubarb, Rose and Passionfruit SorbetLet’s talk about it shall we?

  • It’s fruity, tangy and not too sweet so incredibly refreshing on a hot day.
  • It is the most glorious shade of pink.
  • The passionfruit and rose water make it smell like a summer garden.
  • It has a  Rhubarb Almond Shard
  • And is sprinkled with Rhubarb Crumble Dust
  • And for the cherry on the top, it’s got…well…a cherry on the top.

I based this recipe on the Rhubarb and Rose Sorbet in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage, Light and Easy which was my selection when we did a stint on Celebrity Chefs for Tasty Reads. I usually find Hugh very engaging, hence choosing the book, however I admit I have struggled with it a bit.  I’m all for dairy and wheat free however it just seemed like a bit of a chore, not to mention expense to have to buy new ingredients for just about every dish – this one has buckwheat flour, that one had chestnut flour, the other had chickpea flour.  Never even mind the expense.  Who has the space?

But I pretty much had everything for the sorbet, except the rhubarb already.  I also had a little passionfruit left over from the Valentine’s Day Soufflé so I popped that in as well.

Rhubarb, Rose and Passionfruit Sorbet26 Week Challenges

These have been a bit of a disaster.  I downloaded an update to my phone weekend before last. And it killed it.  #epicfailnexus5  The phone would no longer read the sim card.  So after spending the weekend trying every fix available on Google on Monday I got a new sim card, even though I kind of already knew it wasn’t the sim card.  On Tuesday the phone went in for a service.  Then there was a WEEK of daily calls of “Is it fixed?  “Is it fixed? Is it fixed?”  Then after seven days they said “Oh, we now know it’s not hardware, it’s software” and they got a “I KNOW IT’S NOT HARDWARE I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T HARDWARE ONE WEEK AGO.  YOU HAVE SPENT A WEEK WASTING MY TIME AND YOUR TIME. JUST PUT IT BACK TO WHAT IT WAS BEFORE THE UPDATE” And an hour later it was fixed.  Seriously I hate being such a bitch to service people.  But really.  A week.

A week where, I was without my meditation app and my flexibility app.  So they fell by the wayside.  I downloaded some mediation podcasts to my ipod.  Which promptly broke.

Oh and my car wouldn’t start this morning.

Technology hates me.

On the more positive side, my March resolution of 6 weeks without Candy Crush is going amazingly well!

Silver linings!

I’m starting a new challenge today:

The Persiana Project

As of now, I have 32 dishes left to cook from the very many I marked as “Want To Cook” in Persiana.  Sabrina Ghayour’s new book comes out in 50 days.  Technically, I can cook them all between now and then.  Realistically, it is unlikely however, to raise the stakes, I have made a deal with myself not to by Sirocco until I have cooked the 32.  And I REALLY want that new book.

We’re going to be eating a LOT of Middle Eastern Food over the next few weeks.   I can’t wait!

Reading

The Shut Eye – Belinda Bauer

Loved it – a great thriller about a missing child and a suspect psychic.

When We Were Invincible – Jonathan Harnisch

I feel really bad about saying that I am not enjoying this because it seems quite ungrateful seeing as I got it for free off Net Galley.  But I am half way through and I ‘m really struggling.  The plot…what there is of it….revolves around a teenager who suffers from Tourette’s and his life at an elite prep school.  I’m finding it all bit too stream of consciousness-y; with not nearly enough context for me to be able to enjoy the story.

Ummmm….let me think of some positives….

  • It’s very likely a very real description of being in the head of someone who is mentally ill.
  • It’s short.
  • I love the cover.

Watching

I watched the movie Compliance and it totally ooked me out.  Seriously, watching it made me feel dirty.  Several times I wanted to turn it off  because it was painful to watch. Having said that I would actually recommend it.  But be warned it is TOUGH going.  It will also make you question every person who ever calls you on the phone.  Not a bad thing really seeing as it is based on true.

Then I watched The Breakfast Club.  Damn, I love that movie!  And it made everything all right with the world again.   And I spent about three days walking around singing “Hey, hey, hey, hey….”

I’m still not trusting anyone who calls me who is not on my speed dial though.

Cooking

I haven’t been cooking much as I have been working all the hours!  I have been living on toast or things from the freezer.  Hopefully things will slow down soon because next week I have marked out to cook:

  • Margaret Fulton’s Quail in Vine Leaves with Muscat Grapes
  • Sabrina Ghayour’s Safavid style beef pastries
  • Laurie Colwin’s Broccoli Salad

Ok, here’s the recipe for the Sorbet:

Print

Rhubarb, Rose and Passionfruit Sorbet

A lovely light, refreshing sorbet, not too sweet with a glorious pink colour.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 750g rhubarb
  • 75ml orange juice
  • 75g passionfruit pulp
  • 100g caster sugar
  • up to 50g icing sugar
  • up to 2 tsp rose water
  • 100g passionfruit pulp

Rhubarb Crumble Dust & Almond Shard

  • 18 Rhubarb Crumble boiled lollies (or any fruit flavoured boiled lollies)
  • 100g flaked almonds
  • Oil

To Serve

  • Ice Cream Cones
  • Maraschino Cherries

Instructions

  1. Trim the rhubarb and cut into 3-4cm lengths. Place in a large saucepan with the caster sugar and the orange juice.
  2. Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the rhubarb is completely soft. Puree in the pan until smooth.
  3. When cool, stir in the passionfruit.
  4. Taste and add the icing sugar as required.
  5. Stir in the rosewater. Start at about 1/4 teaspoon and add it gradually until you get your desired level of rosiness.
  6. Chill until cold and churn in an ice cream maker until soft set, then transfer to a freezer container and freeze until cold. Alternatively, pour the mixture into a freezer container and freeze for an hour. Then remove from the freezer and break up the frozen sides, pushing them into the softer centre. Return to the freezer and repeat every hour until the mixture is soft-set.
  7. Then let it freeze solid.

Rhubarb Crumble Dust

  1. Place the boiled lollies in your blender and grind into a powder.
  2. Remove a third of the mixture to sprinkle over the top of your sorbet as your dust.

Almond Shard

  1. Heat your oven to 180C
  2. Line a baking tray with baking paper and lightly grease. I used coconut oil.
  3. Sprinkle the paper with the almonds, then with the remaining crushed lolly powder.
  4. Place in the oven until the lollies melt.
  5. Remove from the oven and all to cool.
  6. Break into shards

To Serve

  1. Place two scoops of sorbet into an ice cream cone.
  2. Sprinkle a teaspoon over the Rhubarb Crumble Dust over the icecream, stab with an Almond Shard and top with a cherry.
  3. Enjoy!

Have a great week!  And let me know what you’ve been cooking, reading, watching!

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REPOST – Speedy Soufflé for Valentines Day

Hello friends, I am in the middle of cooking something new for you for Valentine’s Day, however, it is 4:00 pm and I just read the part of the recipe that says part of the recipe needs to set overnight.  As tomorrow is a working day, I am not sure if I will be able to finish cooking and write up a post in time, so like all good tv cooks, here is one I prepared earlier.  This post for Passionfruit Soufflé was originally published in 2014!  However, it somehow made its way back into my drafts folder.

Ready to take a trip back to 2014?

Lets do it!

I made my very first soufflé.  For you, for Valentine’s Day.

And it’s filled with passion – fruit.

Passionfruit Souffle 3Passionfruit Souffle 9

I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to make a soufflé.  I have some vague childhood memories of eating cheese soufflés and them not being very nice.  Then again, I ate nothing for two years except vegemite sandwiches so my judgement was possibly awry.  But those memories and the soufflé’s reputation for being notoriously temperamental might be the reasons I have stayed away.  After all, the soufflé come with more rules and regulations than the driving handbook:

  • Don’t beat the eggs too little
  • Don’t beat the eggs too much
  • Don’t fold the egg whites too roughly
  • Don’t open the door of the oven
  • Don’t make loud noises or sudden movements
  • Don’t look it directly in the eyes

Etc, etc.

What they don’t tell you is this.  You can have a decent soufflé cooked from scratch and on the table in less than 20 minutes. So let’s get started.

Butter and sugar coat your soufflé dish.  When you butter your dish, brush the butter from the middle of the dish to the rim and then up the sides of the dish.  This creates tiny channels that helps the soufflé to rise.   Seriously this works.

Passionfruit Souffle

When you are ready to start mix your egg yolk, half the sugar and the passionfruit juice in a bowl until light and creamy.

Then mix your egg white and sugar to soft peaks.

Passionfruit Souffle 5Then fold the yolk into the white.  Gently does it here.  A little streaky is fine.  Then pour into your prepared soufflé dish.

Passionfruit Souffle 6

Now, into a preheated oven for 12 minutes.  So we’re not tempted to open that door and ruin our “ahem” hard work, let’s talk about romance.  After all it is Valentine’s Day.

True Romance

The last few Valentine’s Days I have given you some horror stories.  Not so this year.  This year we are talking about two very special romantic moments in my life.

Let’s start with my first ever boyfriend.  We started going out when I was 15 and he was 16.  There was a local park we used to frequent to get away from prying parental eyes and ears.  So, one Sunday afternoon we rode our bikes down to said park and headed towards our favourite bench to have a kiss and a cuddle.  We had not been there long when, from down the hill we heard some children screaming “Help, help, Angus has fallen in the lake”.

Passionfruit Souffle 7Well, he took off down that hill, and jumped in, fully clothed to save what we assumed was a drowning child.  Turned out Angus was a labrador puppy who had been quite happy paddling around the shallows and had not even noticed the distress of his young owners. Semi disaster averted and there was a little swoony dripping wet with tight tshirt moment.  Made only more adorable by the squirming puppy in his arms!

Young love.  My hero.  And a puppy.  Life did not get much better!

Passionfruit Souffle 8So move forward…..a few decades years to the fussiest eater in the world.  A few weeks ago we were walking the dogs by the lake and noticed that one of the ducks had become entangled in some fishing wire and was only able to move in a tiny circle.  And cue the second Mr Darcy moment of my life.

Passionfruit Souffle 11

Not only did he jump into the lake (it was only calf-deep so no wet shirt here) but he unwound the fishing line from the duck’s leg then we noticed there was also some line knotted around its beak and neck. It was really knotted and tight he ended up having to bite through it!  It was both amazing and kind of gross.  That lake water is pretty dirty and I was expecting him to get sick from swallowing even a little bit of it. (He didn’t).

These moments may not have involved hearts and roses but for me were two of the most generous-spirited and selfless acts I have seen.  And that is true romance!

(2022 note, the beagle in this picture is Lulu, not Holly.)

Passionfruit Souffle 10

Back to the Soufflé

OK, our 12 minutes is up and the soufflé is out of the oven.  Quickly dust with icing sugar, add a  dollop of passionfruit pulp over the top and serve immediately.  Your souffé will start to deflate from the time it comes out of the oven so speed is of the essence here.

Passionfruit Souffle 9

And then tell me when the love heart lollies of our childhood took a step into the digital age?  Not only are they now using Twitter….

Passionfruit Souffle 12

But also Tinder!

Passionfruit Souffle 13

Swipe left on that! But swipe right on my Passionfruit Soufflé!

The Recipe – Passionfruit Soufflé

Print

Passionfruit Soufflé

A delicious passionfruit souffle that can be on the table in about 15 minutes!

  • Author: Taryn Fryer
  • Prep Time: 4
  • Cook Time: 12
  • Total Time: 16 minutes
  • Yield: 1 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 egg, separated
  • 21/2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 can passionfruit in syrup, you will need 1 tbsp of syrup
  • icing sugar to dust
  • melted butter to grease the souffle dish
  • 1 8cm souffle dish

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
  2. Butter the souffle dish, spreading the butter from the middle of the dish up the sides. Scatter a tablespoon of sugar into the dish tipping it all around the insides until it is entirely covered.
  3. Strain the passionfruit syrup into a dish, you will need a tablesppon of liquid. Reserve the seeds for later.
  4. Place the syrup with the egg yolk and half a tablespoon of sugar into a bowl and beat with an electric beater until light and creamy.
  5. In a separate bowl beat the egg white to soft peaks, then add the remaining sugar, a little at a time until the mixture is glossy and holding it’s shape.
  6. Using a metal spoon, fold the whites into the yolks. A light touch is needed here, you want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. It is better to have the mixture a bit streaky than to have it over mixed!
  7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish to just below the rim then run your thumb around the rim to totally clear it of any sugar, souffle mix etc that will prevent rising.
  8. Pop the dish onto a baking tray and bake for 12 minutes.
  9. Do not open the oven during this time.
  10. Remove from oven. They are done when a finger touched lightly on the top comes away clean but there is still a slight wobble in the middle.
  11. Quickly dust with icing sugar and add a dollop of the reserved passionfruit seeds and some additional syrup.
  12. Serve immediately.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 2

Have a wonderful Valentine’s day!  And don’t forget to spare a moment to moment to say thank you to the everyday heroes in your life, the people saving dogs and ducks and generally making the world a better place.  If you have a spare 15 minutes  why not make them a soufflé?

 

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Sussex Pond Pudding

In a weird coincidence, the last three cookbooks I have read have all contained recipes for Sussex Pond Pudding. I had never heard of such a thing  before and suddenly, it was stalking me!  The universe was absolutely, positively telling me something.  And I took that message to be that I should make one.  Because that’s what the universe does right?  Offers a gentle guiding hand to point you in the direction of where you need to be going.

But first, somewhat of a digression.  The cognitive bias that had me seeing Sussex Pond Pudding everywhere has a name – The Bader-Meinhof Phenomenom.  It occurs when a word, name or thing comes into your attention and shortly afterwards it reappears with what seems like greater than normal frequency.  I’d love to know if, after reading this any of you randomly hear the words Bader-Meinhof or Sussex Pond Pudding over the next few weeks.   Let me know if you do.

Sussex Pond Pudding – The Inspiration

My most recent sighting of a Sussex Pond Pudding (kinda makes it sound like the Loch Ness Monster) came from Big Table, Busy Kitchen by Allegra McEvedy.

I find Allegra McEvedy immensely likeable and all of her recipes that I have tried have been successful.  She describes the Sussex Pond Pudding as follows:

“This classic English Steamed Pudding is definitely of a superior nature to most of it’s steamy brethren…it’s the only steamed pudding I ever make and I need to make it at least once a winter”

High praise!

The next reference came from  The National Trust’s Complete Traditional Recipe Book by Sarah Edington.

She offers some the following explanation of the name.

“Sussex and Kent extend their rivalry to puddings – the most famous being Sussex Pond Pudding and Kentish Well Pudding.  The former consists of a suet crust enclosing butter, brown sugar and a whole lemon, and in the latter currants are added.  Either way, when the pudding is cut open, a rich sweet syrup, the well or pond  – oozes out.”

The final book (which was actually the first book I read containing those three words was Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking.  Which you can read more about here.

You may have noticed that thus far, you have not seen any of my photos of the Sussex Pond Pudding.  I thought I would intersperse my pictures with Laurie’s commentary.

A Digression on Suet

By the way, Laurie Colwin calls it Suffolk Pond Pudding.  For the sake of consistency, I will refer to it as Sussex Pond Pudding throughout.

But first.  Can we talk about suet? OMFG – was a more disgusting substance ever invented?  This has to figure right up there with the civet pooping coffee and that bird embryo they keep getting people to eat on Survivor and The Amazing Race.  I had to look it up because I was actually not too sure what it was.  I wish I hadn’t

Suet – raw beef or mutton fat, especially the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys. 

I am really sorry British people who eat this stuff all the time but that is just disgusting.  Raw sheep kidney fat.  Exactly what I want in my sweet pudding.

Turns out you can buy (fake?) suet in the supermarket and it looks kind of like breadcrumbs of butter.  So not as bad as you might think.  Just try not to think where those buttery breadcrumbs come from.

And that pastry?  Was a bastard of a thing to make.  And I was not at all happy with the finished product. It was very both heavy//thick and fragile.  Getting it to line the pudding bowl was a nightmare.

Suet Pastry

Sussex Pond Pudding  – The Commentary

And now, over to Laurie Colwin.

“Sussex Pond Pudding although something of a curiousity sounded perfectly it splendid….it never occurred to me that nobody might want to eat it”

No one wanted to eat mine either.  The fussiest eater in the world took one look at it.

“What is that?”

It’s a Sussex Pond Pudding”

“It looks disgusting”

He comes from Kent.  Maybe I should have added currants.

Suet Pastry2Back to Laurie:

“My suet crust was masterful.  When unwrapped from it’s cloth, the crust was a beautiful deep honey colour”

Mine too, at least at the bottom, which became the top where all the butter and sugar had soaked into the pastry.

Sussex Pond Pudding

“My hostess look confused.  “It looks like a baked hat”, she said.

“It looks like the Alien,” my future husband said.

“Never mind, ” I said.  “It will be the most delicious thing you ever tasted”. 

Sussex Pond Pudding2

“I cut the pudding.  As Jane Grigson had promised, out ran a lemon-scented buttery toffee.  I sliced up the lemon which was soft and buttery too.  Each person was to get some crust, a slice of lemon and some sauce.  What a hit!  I thought.  Exactly the sort of thing I adored.  I looked around me happily and my happiness turned to ash”

The buttery lemony sauce was by far the best thing about this . It was actually quite delicious.  And the soaked buttery pastry was not awful either.

Sussex Pond Pudding4

 

My host said: “This tastes like lemon-flavoured bacon fat”

“I’m sure it’s wonderful, ” said my hostess.  “I mean, in England”.

The woman guest said “This is awful.”

My future husband remained silent.

Mine did not taste like bacon fat, maybe because I used the fake supermarket suet. If you got  the right ration of sauce (lots) to pastry (not much) it was actually not too bad.  It was not the “weird inedible sludge from outer space” Laurie Colwin describes however it is also not something I will feel compelled to make at least once a year like Allegra. Or ever again.

Although I am going to have to find something to do with the rest of that suet!

Sussex Pond Pudding5I guess that sometimes, instead of being that gentle guiding hand, the universe is a smartarse little jokester who is six steps ahead of you laying down banana peels for you to pratfall on.

And then, just as you are shaking your fist at it, it gives you a little wink and a grin and holds out its hands in a let’s be friends gesture.  In my instance, remember a couple of weeks ago  I said this:

I have a real hankering to go back and watch some early XFiles. I have yet to scratch that particular itch but it’s there….

And lo and behold, I was flicking channels on Saturday night during an ad break in, ok, I admit it, The Hunger Games and look what was on my telly:XfilesJust a couple of minutes before this scene Mulder was examining Scully’s butt for alien probes.  It was AWESOME!  I can’t wait for next Saturday!

Have a great week!

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